Man, 43, caught in online child sex sting at Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Pool is jailed after breaching supervision order 3 times

A 43-year-old Borders man caught in an online child sex sting at Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool has been jailed after breaching his supervision order three times.

Peter Mulvey, of Galashiels, pleaded guilty in April 2019 to engaging in indecent online communications with someone claiming to be a child. He was given a community payback order two months later which meant he would be under supervision for three years.

The order means he has to disclose details of any devices he could access the internet on and must inform social workers of any friendships, associations or intimate or domestic relationships he forms.

Last September he was warned of the consequences of breaching the order again after he admitted contacting two women via Facebook Messenger without informing social workers.

Peter Mulvey, who has been jailed for 10 months after breaching a supervision order three times.

He also engaged in a conversation through Facebook without notifying social services staff of the identity of the person he was talking to, and has since breached the supervision order again.

At Selkirk Sheriff Court last week, sheriff Peter Paterson acknowledged that Mulvey had not re-offended since the original offence but said it was the third time he had failed to comply with the court order and that this was unacceptable.

Mulvey was jailed for ten months and put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for ten years.

He was originally banned from accessing the internet without prior approval for three years after admitting engaging in indecent online communications with someone claiming to be a child.

That sentence was handed out after Mulvey was caught in an online sting at Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool staged by a group set up to name and shame alleged sex offenders in December 2018, then went on to send multiple messages to someone he thought was a young girl.

Members of an organisation called Wolf Pack Hunters UK targeted Mulvey in an online confrontation live-streamed on its Facebook page.

The vigilante group claims to expose alleged sex offenders by posing as children to act as decoys to lure people into meeting them and then films such encounters and shares them online with its thousands of followers.